KTM 690 Tuning Survey

I&#8217;ve had a half-dozen XTs and XRs and am hoping to move up to a KTM 690R soon. I&#8217;ve been reading the 690 threads to learn what to expect. It&#8217;s clear there are some issues with the ECU to provide top quality throttle response, performance and fuel mileage, but the info is often unspecific and spread out over hundreds of forum pages so it&#8217;s hard to come to solid conclusions.

I thought a 690 modification and tuning survey would be a good way to gather valuable info and experience from those of you who have paid the price of dialing your bikes in, and put that intel in a focused thread.

All of my 40 years of riding have been on bikes with carburetors and I&#8217;ve learned that if I change the flow of intake air or exhaust gases, I have to re-adjust the fuel-air mixture and sometimes the timing. The best results came from careful, methodical trial & error changes.

Modern high compression, fuel injected, computer-managed engines like the LC4 have to meet demanding emission and noise standards so it is no surprise there are occasional flat spots, jerks, stumbles, surges, stalls and backfires, especially if the intake and exhaust is modified to cause leaner fuel-air mixtures.

Seems like some ADV riders are able to resolve those hiccups while many others struggle with them. In 1977, I paid $1,300 out the door for my 1<sup>st</sup> Yam XT500. Today, I&#8217;m thinking that if I have to pay $10,000 for an enduro, the throttle response should be spot-on and the performance should be mind-blowing, without having to spend another $3,000 like the staff at Motorcycle USA.com did on their 2009 Duke 690 project bike:

It would be great if some professional tuners (i.e. KTM techs, engineers, Kevin Camerons, etc.) chime in with some jewels of wisdom, experience, research and development. I'd also appreciate feedback from readers to help fine-tune the tuning survey.

Below is a list of survey questions to help readers figure out what tuning changes are needed to get the best throttle response, performance and fuel mileage for various intake, exhaust and engine modifications. Your R&D efforts will make the lives of new 690 owners a lot easier and more affordable. Thanks for your help.

Jim

1. What tuning experience did you have when you got your 690 (novice, a fair amount on my own bikes, pro tuner, Kevin Cameron asks me for advice)?

2. Which model 690 do you have (Enduro, R, SMC, Duke, etc)?

3. What year is it?

4. Did you have any throttle response or performance problems when the bike was STOCK?

5. What fuel mileage did you get with the STOCK intake and exhaust?

6. What INTAKE changes have you made (filter, airbox) and did they cause any throttle response or performance problems?

7. What EXHAUST changes have you made (header, silencer or both; which brand and model pipe, and what alterations to it) and did they cause any throttle or performance problems?

8. What OTHER engine changes have you made (cam, piston, disabled emissions, turbo, etc) and how did they affect the throttle response and performance?

9. What tuning steps gave the best results for the changes you made (stock maps, downloaded maps, advanced ECU tuning, total ECU tuning, aftermarket ECU, disabled emissions stuff, going back to stock intake or exhaust, switching to a carburetor, etc)?

4. Did you have any throttle response or performance problems when the bike was STOCK? No, just wanted a little more

5. What fuel mileage did you get with the STOCK intake and exhaust?

6. What INTAKE changes have you made (filter, airbox) and did they cause any throttle response or performance problems? Im pretty sure he did the rally raid conversion, will check tomorrow

7. What EXHAUST changes have you made (header, silencer or both; which brand and model pipe, and what alterations to it) and did they cause any throttle or performance problems? FmF Q4 slip-on no alterations

8. What OTHER engine changes have you made (cam, piston, turbo, nitro-methane, etc) and how did they affect the throttle response and performance? None

9. What tuning steps gave the best results for the changes you made (stock maps, downloaded maps, advanced ECU tuning, total ECU tuning, aftermarket ECU, going back to stock intake or exhaust, switching to a carburetor, etc)? Power commander, will check on tuning tomorrow

11. How did you verify improvements in performance (sounded faster, felt faster, wheelies in higher gear, faster compared to another bike, faster at drag strip, more power on dyno)? Felt faster, slight increase in Hp at dyno and a pretty drastic change in the power curve for the better

12. What mileage do you get after the mods and tuning?

13. How satisfied are you with the results of your tuning (sold the bike, still working on it, living with it being so-so, pretty darn good, it's perfect)? He's happy with the results but has been thinking of making a few changes

14. If you had to start over, would you do things differently? Will ask tomorrow but i know he wanted something other than the power commander, and ive heard him mention getting a header for the FmF

He did all the mods at the same time so i cant say what he noticed between the individual mods.

Im glad you posted this Jimboe. I have just purchased a used 2009 690 enduro R and the fueling is god aweful. I have just started trawling through the forums to see what others have had to do. The info is all over the palce, often contradictory and generally a change everything approach without ever finding a route cause.

That's the price of trying to get info from a forum of course. In everyones' defense KTM seem to be no better at being able to fix the problem.

It would be nice to see a list of symptoms a fix would resolve.

What symptoms are cured when chaning out a fuel pump for example.
Fuel injetor cleaning
What diagnostics can be done using tune ECU?
Why would an aftermarket ECU be better than stock?

If there was some sort of guidline it may help us fault find rather than throwing bits at the bike.
I wish us all the best of luck with this thread

I have a 2012 690R Enduro (USA model). I have about 3600 miles on it, of which all but maybe 500 miles were street. Those 500 dirt miles consisted of three dual sport rides in modest terrain. Only a few rock gardens, but plenty of mud. My motor/exhaust system is totally stock as is my gearing. I set the map to soft (#1) for city and my dual sport rides. I think my fueling is perfect.

- No flat spots or stumbles
- Idles solidly smooth with no wondering revs. Steady at 1700rpm.
- Highway fuel mileage at 65mph sea level is mid-low 50mpg.
- No sudden death or stalling. Note: When I changed the map it stalled, but I did the throttle 'reset' and no more stalling the last 2k miles.
- Fires up instantly every time
- Throttle is jerky until motor is up to operating temp, then much better. The throttle is light, though, so plonking on rock gardens require a nice touch with your clutch to avoid surges from bumps.

My old KTM 950 was modded from new with Akro's, cannister removal, airbox mods, adjusted needles and such. It never ever ran really well. It had mild surging and sudden death for 60,000 miles. Our racing motorcycles have full kit parts and we have them mapped perfectly for the type of fuel we use. But there is a lot of knowledge surrounding that type of tuning. It seems the KTM 690's have little, so I opted to keep mine stock, including the exhaust system. So far the reward has been perfect fueling.

The bike is plenty fast even in map 1. It accelerates as hard as my 950 or Ducati 900 up to about 100mph. It's faster than my old 750 Monster, but it should be since it makes the same power with 100lbs less weight. I think the 690R could get into the elevens in a quarter mile with a decent launch.

What Pantah said. My '12 runs great, gets almost 70 mpg on the road. Wings exhaust with small tip.

Cheers,

MrHix

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Is this almost 70 mpg claim true? Is that happening regularly for you? How are you driving it to get that number? My ktm 690 never saw anything close to that granted, mine was always fully loaded with gear, fairing, and I had a aftermarket exhaust and a unipod air filter.

Now we're talking! Thanks for the replies, guys. With enough of them we should see trends like Pantah's that will serve as baselines, as well as trends of which tuning steps work best for brand X muffler, brand Y air filter, and other common hot-rodding changes.

The results may also illuminate some myths about changing things like emissions equipment and expose unjustified hype about certain expensive aftermarket "performance" parts.

But the best result of this thread would be that our bikes all run exactly how we want them to.

Is this almost 70 mpg claim true? Is that happening regularly for you? How are you driving it to get that number? My ktm 690 never saw anything close to that granted, mine was always fully loaded with gear, fairing, and I had a aftermarket exhaust and a unipod air filter.

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I have the KTM windscreen, riding about 55 mph, no extra gear, 155 lb rider. I'm sure it will vary because I have a hard time filling the tank up with the vapor recycling nozzles. I imagine it will work out somewhere in the mid to upper 60s. Much better than my 250 KTM which got 35 mpg.

I've just been shufling through the forums myself trying to determin exactly where things stand on this issue with the fuelling on the 690. From what I've put together from the scattered info (and reading between the lines) has made me comforetable in making my decision to buy a new one in couple of weeks.It seems the newer bikes hardly have any issues at all.
Best and most info in regards to performance tuning I got from few Super Moto forums. SM guys seem to be more into hp mods and gains and seem to have tried pretty much everything on thair SM's.

If one is going to do exhaust mods and remaping (I can say from years of my own experiance) things will never work 100% unless you do a proper custom Dyno map by an experianced reputable Dyno tuner. So unless you're willing to go all the way and have ability/access to Dyno than I wouldnt mess with it, but if you do, the gains can be fenominal in throtle responce, torque and hp gains and throtle can feel like it's conected to the rear wheel.

I plan on a complete and detailed tune. This will include an exhaust system (brand undetermaned yet), PCVusb, airbox/air filter mods, removal of all unecessary AP stuff and a full proper dyno tune. Unfortunately I wont be able to do this till around April when I get back from work but I will post all my progress once I do.

Fitted a Vortex ignition/fuel module. Super good fueling, but much heavier on fuel (30 km less per tank). I'm running 25% softer intial throttle when commuting, 10% intial softer when off-road. Doesn't get hot. The feeling of total control is priceless.

Unfortunately both sources are German speaking, but in the second link you can find lots of dyno-curves speaking for themselves. My younger brother equipped his SMC 690 with a "Kastl" 1,5 years ago. Now a friend has the new SMC 690 R all stock (with 36 ccm more), but my brother´s bike has more muscles AND the better manners. Nobrainer in my opinion.

MrHix: You said I believe, that you have a 2012 690 with a Wings exhaust. I've read of guys installing those and NOT remapping. I want a Wings on mine primarily for weight and exhaust can temperature reduction reasons. I don't want to screw up my fueling which seems to be spot on. Can you tell me what you did to remap if anything and how it runs as a result of your swap to the Wings?

MrHix: You said I believe, that you have a 2012 690 with a Wings exhaust. I've read of guys installing those and NOT remapping. I want a Wings on mine primarily for weight and exhaust can temperature reduction reasons. I don't want to screw up my fueling which seems to be spot on. Can you tell me what you did to remap if anything and how it runs as a result of your swap to the Wings?

Thanks!

Lee...

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I installed a Wings can & RR foam Filter on My 2012 with no remap & it ran fine. No stalling or bad habbits. Then remapped to Akra Maps, still running fine with no issues whatsoever.
Creedy.